The present invention relates to a system and method for updating geographic databases used by computing platforms that provide navigation-related features or services.
Navigation systems are provided on various different computer platforms. For example, a navigation system can be a standalone system or a networked system. In a standalone navigation system, the software applications, geographic data, and hardware are combined at a single location. A standalone system may be installed in a vehicle or carried by a person. In a networked navigation system, some of the software or geographic data are located with the hardware with the user and some of the software or geographic data are located remotely and accessed over a communications system. A navigation system can be implemented on a dedicated platform in which the hardware and software are specifically designed for navigation purposes. Alternatively, a navigation system can be implemented on a general purpose computing platform (such as a personal computer, personal digital assistant, or a networked computer) using appropriate navigation-related software applications and data.
Navigation systems (including general purpose computing platforms that run navigation applications) provide a variety of useful features and services. For example, navigation systems used in vehicles can provide detailed instructions for driving to desired destinations thereby reducing travel times and expenses. Navigation systems and navigation applications can also search for businesses of a desired type and provide routing guidance to locations of such businesses. Navigation systems and navigation applications can also incorporate real-time traffic information. Navigation systems and applications may also be used by operators of vehicle fleets, such as trucking companies, package delivery services, and so on.
One consideration associated with navigation systems and applications is that geographic data used by the navigation systems become out-of-date. For example, new roads are built, businesses change locations, road construction closes roads, detours are established, museum and restaurant hours change, etc. It is expected that end users, such as vehicle owners who have navigation systems in their vehicles, will want to have the geographic data in their navigation systems updated from time to time.
One way to provide a navigation system user with updated geographic data is to replace the entire geographic database used by a navigation system with an entirely new version containing new, updated data. A consideration with this approach is that a relatively large portion of the data in the new geographic database will be the same as the data in the older version and therefore will not need to have been replaced.
Another way to provide navigation system users with updated geographic data is to provide the user with only the updated data and provide a mechanism whereby the updated data can be applied to the old geographic database. Embodiments for incrementally updating a geographic database are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,893,113, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein.
Although the embodiments disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,893,113 are satisfactory, there continues to be room for improvement. Accordingly, there exists a need for a way to provide for updating a geographic database used in a navigation system.